The Beginning

My name is Adrian Merloy and I am dead.  Yes for real I am dead, murdered, killed.  Yet here I am still walking around and posting the Internet.  There is a quite a bit happening right now and in order to keep it all straight I’m going to start writing it down.  This journal is for my own personal records, but if you are not me and reading this you can rest assured of a few things.

First off, I am not going to wax philosophical and spend paragraphs talking how this whole experience granted me some sort of insight into life.  Neither am I going to spend much time crying over my fate.  Rest assured that I am sad about it.  I am very far from unfeeling.  However, no one wants to read that shit.  I know I always pass over it whenever I see it.  Fuck your thoughts; I want the facts.  If I’ve learned anything I’ve learned that there actually is no plan.  Everything is random and all we can do is hold on for the ride.  Finally, I promise to be honest above all else.

All right let’s get down to it.  I’m dead (like I said) and yet I still can walk and talk and hold a thought in my head…  somewhat.  There are others like me out there.  In fact there are whole communities, complete with a social and political structure that boggles the mind.  All of those many intricacies and unwritten but widely understood rules.  Oh, those rules better be understood or it’s the end of the road for you.  Again.  I’m just beginning to get a handle on what it all means. 

They fight, they plan, and they scheme and cover up all their disquiet with drugs and parties.  These communities of people that are like me; but not like me.  They exist in a bubble of their own creation.  It is as if they are part of the world; but not of it.  Yes, they intellectually know that there are people out there, fucking, eating, shitting and living.  Yet it seems that the emotional link to those making love, having babies and nursing their cancers has disappeared.  To them those striving, breathing, dreaming human beings don’t exist as anything but food.

That’s the scariest part of them.  Not that they are the walking dead and want to drink your blood.  No, it is because they forgot.  They forgot about the world.  They have lost just about all that makes them human.  If I stood up and announced the truth about myself, they would be shocked; but not for the normal moral reasons.  They seem to believe all the pretty stories I tell them.  It’s amazing really, because any human knows it’s never that simple.  Life is brutal, painful and short but in that pain we find meaning through one another.  Even worse it seems that they don’t even know about this loss.  Or perhaps they just don’t care.  If I survive much longer, I most likely will become the same as them.  The fear of that nearly gives life back to my unbeating heart. 

Ah fuck it; never mind.  I told you I wouldn’t philosophise … Shit.  All right, let’s get to my story.  I’ll talk more about them later.  That fateful night started out like so many others.  I was sitting on Navy Pier; a nice enough spot.  The police tend to be pretty thick around that area.  Thick in the skulls I mean.  I could be negotiating a John right in front of them and they will miss it.  That could be intentional, I don’t know.  Oh yeah, I should get that out of the way.  I’m a prostitute, a rent boy, and a motherfucking whore.  Yes that’s right I’ll fuck your mother if you want… provided you pay.   And if she’s less than appealing, you better be forking over the cash.  It's time for the truth.  I do have a pile of nonsense that I tell people about being an art student.  That’s all nothing but faded hopes and dreams.  I keep my name secret for a very good reason.  Don’t want them looking me up only to discover I was never on the roster. 

Surprised?  Shocked?  I don’t care.  It is what it is and I’m good at it… and there you go.  So I was doing nothing more than staring out over the water and sketching the moon.  I like to draw when I get a chance.  It relaxes me I guess.  A man sat down next to me and put his hand on my thigh.  It is always nice when they do all of the work for you.  I turned to him with my biggest and brightest smile. 

One thing I am good with is people.  Damn, I said I would be honest.  Okay the only thing I’m good with is people.  Yet that is a pretty good advantage to a whore.  The best way to describe it is that I can sense them.  You can call it catching their vibes if you want.  Give me a man and five minutes to talk to him.  In that time I get a really good sense of what he wants and where he is going.  Give me a bit more time and I can tell you how he plans to get there and even his unspoken desires.  It’s not mind reading, its just years of being observant and listening carefully enough to remember what others say.  Women are a bit different but I usually can pick up on them too.    

There are some that are closed up as tight as a drum.  With those I can’t quite tune in.  Those are the smart ones.  Most are so desperate for understanding and comradely that they let it all hang out.  That’s where I came in.  I’ll tell you being a whore is nothing like you think it is.  They don’t pay me to get them off.  They can do that on their own.  I am more than just a skinny boy with a big (really big) cock.  It all comes down to sexual psychosis, man.  It be a mindfuck.  

This story is not about my extremely fucked up sexual shit.  Let's just say it gets weird man.  Now back to my story.  I turned to the man on the pier expecting just about anything.  All I found was loneliness with a faint wistfulness beneath.  He was gorgeous, unspeakably beautiful.  At least I think he was.  Thinking back I can’t remember his features, not exactly.  Black hair, dark eyes, full mouth, and clear light skin.  It’s strange that I can’t remember his face.  After only a moment I wanted nothing more than to melt into him.  Still I am a businessman and I know how to keep my eye on the bottom line.  The beautiful people can be just as lonely as you and me.  In fact they can be more so as it seems more is expected of them. 

I covered my hand with his and moved it smoothly up my thigh to my crotch.  I told him for $500 dollars I would make him the happiest man alive.  How long that feeling would last I didn’t specify.  With gleaming white teeth he smiled at me and asked if I had some place we could go.  I couldn’t place his accent.  American but not from the Midwest is all I could say.  I usually am good with accents and this should have bothered me.  For some reason I pushed my unease aside.  As usual I got the money up front.  That was a lesson well learned.  From the time it takes to go from the point of seduction to my place a man can have second thoughts.  I have a plan in place if one ever demands his money back.  That is where my trusty knife comes in.   I’m good with a knife.  Really good.   It is always in my back pocket and not far out of reach.  Usually I don’t have to use it.  Once the money is collected most figure they might as well go through with it. 

We didn’t talk much in that short walk.  I might have mentioned the weather and he might have agreed.  I really don’t remember.  No names were exchanged but that didn’t strike me as unusual at the time.  Suddenly we were back at my apartment and he was undressing me.  I know you don’t want to hear about this so don’t worry I won’t go into any detail.  I just need to mention the way he did it, as it seems important.  It was so gentle and so reverent that I almost felt awkward.  Again strange as I am well seasoned enough to remain professional at all times.  Looking back I see it as another clue that I should not have ignored.  I came close to tapping him on the shoulder and reminding him I was a whore and he didn’t have to be so nice.  I didn’t because I was being carried away in such a soothing way.  He seemed to be really into it and if smelling skin was his fetish he could have at it.  I have been dealt so much worse than being treated like a china doll.  The whole thing was sweet very sweet.  He held me afterwards, basically cradling me.  I lay there like an obedient toy, waiting for his time to run out.  I can only say it was peculiar.  Then without a word he bit me.

You know what followed after that.  Pain, ecstasy, weightlessness, his blood on my tongue.  The world fading in and out.  My body dying while my mind stayed alert enough to fight against it.  I think it was horrible.  I can’t say for sure but I’m pretty confident that it was horrible.  He was there the whole time holding my hand.  Soothing words fell from his lips but they were nonsense on top of fantastical.  Eloquently he spoke of my beauty in his eyes and his desire for me.  His future plans for us absurdly included the words family and forever.  Words like daeva, invitcus and others that might as well have been Greek.  I was to find out later that indeed most of them were Greek.  With all that was happening I couldn’t object to or even mentally grasp hold of any of it.

Abruptly everything rushed to a single pinpoint of awareness.  My hunger screamed out as if from every corner of my small little flat.  In a wild flash of instinct I turned, ravenous, to the strange man in my bed.  Unpractised, I was sloppy with the new set of razors in my mouth.  I knew that I had to feed on his blood and it was there beneath the surface of his skin.  Getting to it was the problem.  Like a crazy man I gnawed at the flesh of his neck.  Ripping it open and he cried out in pain.  That was the only hindrance to my feeding as he allowed the rest.  The feeling was wonderful but it was awful at the same time.

The blood filled my brain and it awoke a part that seemed to have survived.  Sickened it alerted me to what I was currently doing.  I jerked back from the man gasping from shock.  Blood still painting my lips and chin.  A feeling of absolute horror rang in my head than flowed like water throughout my body.  I had just been drinking his blood.  I had loved doing it.  You know that moment when your brain catches up to your actions?  As if you had been running on automatic before suddenly coming back to yourself?  It was like that times a million. 

I fled from the bed.  I heard him calling after me as I stumbled into the bathroom.  I slammed the door after me.  Collapsing onto the dirty floor, I pulled my knees up to my chest and rocked.  There were knocks on the door and he asked me by name to come out.  I had never told him my name.  When everything sane is gone the only thing left is the familiar.  This was a just a trick.  I told my hysterical mind.  Sure he was a bit unusual but I could get through this.  I had to get it together.

With a shaky breathless voice I told him I would be right out.  I used the sink embedded in the wall for leverage to pull myself up.   I rubbed some water into my face and looked in the mirror.  At first I thought there was a smear and I tried to clean it off with a towel.  My efforts were futile against the reflected image.  It was as if the mirror had transformed into a stream and I was attempting to catch a glimpse in the running water.  All I could see was a blurry indistinct mass where my face should have been.  I touched the smooth surface with the tips of my fingers.  My hand was solid on one side and on the other it was a shadowy mass of nothing.   

That feeling of horror was back and this time it was sharp as it washed through me.  With it came more awareness of my body.  My jaw ached and my teeth were sharp and felt foreign in my mouth.  That wasn’t all.  My heart wasn’t beating and I wasn’t breathing.  I hadn’t even noticed but the lack of both of those was suddenly everything in the whole world.  I would have screamed but that required working lungs and I had forgotten how to inhale.  

I heard the man moving on the other side of the door.  Turning towards the sound, I was oddly transfixed with the chipped white paint on the cheap wood.  I froze as my fear transformed into rage.   Something took me over.  Something that was not me.  I don’t know if that exonerates me at all but I swear it to be true.  Whatever it was burst me through the door as if it wasn’t even there.  Somehow it managed to get my knife out of my jeans on the floor.  I was on the man and with a fury that was absolute, we sliced him.  Again and again and again. 

What happened after that I do not know.  When I came back to myself my apartment was completely trashed.  What little furniture I had was broken and smashed.  My discounted box television had survived somehow but my bed had not.  The man was lying on the floor, cut to ribbons and someone was pounding on my front door.  I put on my jeans over my bruised body and opened the door to my landlord.  I listened to him scream at me about the noise at 4am and thought of nothing but the blood in his body.    

I let him finished and gave a whisper of an apology before slipping back into my room.  I went over and sat down next to the body.  He looked as if he had run through a paper shredder.  I had never seen such a gory mess.  Perhaps I had weakened him by drinking so much blood.  My jump on him had been unexpected and had given me the advantage of surprise.  While I had my knife, he had no weapon on him to counter my attack. 

As I stared at his unmoving body I went over all of it in my head.  There was no explanation as to why he hadn’t fought back.  Surely he could have ended me but he had not.  All the bruising on my body had been self-inflicted.  I had not been gentle when throwing myself around.  But it had not been me at all, had it?

I’m a simple guy and I had no perspective for any of this shit.  Yes the word vampire occurred to me but that was a fairy tale.  There was no place for vampires in this modern interconnected world of ours.  Besides vampires from what I knew of them fucking sparkled.  I wasn’t sparkling; in fact I couldn’t have been a bigger mess. 

Yet the thought persisted.  I was weary as if to the bone.  After all of it I just wanted to collapse.  I decided that this whole thing was one big fucking nightmare.  I just needed to get some sleep and it would solve itself.  I just had one thing to do first.

Vampires were not real.  The very thought was absurd.  I knew this but I had to prove it to myself, you know.  If I had killed the man I had big problems.  However if he was a vampire then my problems were that much fucking bigger.  I could have tried the whole stake thing but he already wasn’t moving.  It was madness to even consider harming him further by pushing a sharp piece of wood through his heart.  Staying sane here was of the utmost importance.  Please, please, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.

I have a small balcony.  It faces an alley and is rarely noticed by anyone.  I’m up high enough that you wouldn’t be able to see into unless you had a ladder.  Taking him under the armpits I pulled him outside.  He could barely fit crossways so I arranged him so he looked comfortable.  As if he had just decided to take a nap in the sunshine.  I even got him a blanket to keep him warm.  See I was being thoughtful.  I swear that’s what I was doing.  That’s all I was doing.  Oh sweet Jesus. 

I jerked back inside.  My weariness was turning into panic.  An unnatural desire for shelter crowded out the rest of my thoughts.  My bed was a splintered mess.  So I decided to sleep in the tub.  That made sense, right.  I pulled the mattress into the bathroom with me.  To muffle the noise you know.  People were out there walking around and living their lives.  With the mattress over me I wouldn’t be able to hear them.  So I would be able to sleep.  That’s all it was …  oh god oh god oh god.  Is there even a God?

Hunger was what woke me.  If what I had been doing was sleeping and I’m not even sure that it was.  At least hunger is the word that comes closest to what I was feeling.  This was hunger unmanageable.  It was a gnawing screaming emptiness inside of me.  I pushed the mattress off of me and sat up.  It was night-time again.  Had it ever been day?

I clawed my way to an upright position my fingers curling on the tile.  The man had to be gone by now.  Either that or he was still lying out there.  I had to figure out what to do.  The throbbing from my stomach was making thinking difficult.  I clutched it with both hands as I stepped out of tub.  The motion caused me to bend over gasping from the enormity of the pain in my gut.  Stumbling forward I avoided the mirror entirely.

It was worse than even my most god-awful hangovers.  I envisioned going down to the greasy spoon at the corner and ordering a giant hamburger.  The thought of that made me so violently ill that I nearly lost my footing.  I didn’t even want to think about what that meant.  The man must have slipped me something … There was no other explanation.  There were gaps in my memory.  Weird gaps.

I had worked my way out of the bathroom using the wall for support.  The balcony was behind me and I knew that just by moving my head I would be able to see through the glass doors.  I stared at the wall and listened to my fingernails breaking against it.  Turning I started forward.

Simply put on the balcony the man was gone.  The blanket I had put over him was burned with blackened crinkling edges down the middle.  There were still some ashes beneath and around the blanket.  Most importantly the man was gone and there were ashes where he had been.  A faint burning smell hung in the air.  A soft breeze stirred the dust that had been a fully functioning human being only a few hours ago.  My mind shattered into a million pieces.

I distinctly remembering walking to my refrigerator and getting out an old jam jar.  Then washing the jar in the kitchen sink, drying it with a towel before walking back to the balcony.  I squatted down and pushed what remained of his ashes into the jar.  I did all of that without considering it.  As if it was the most natural thing in the world to do. 

You know what the most fucked up thing about all of this was?  And there is no shortage of fuckedupness in this story.  I really believed he loved me.  There was something that had driven him here.  That had moved him to me.  Somehow he had known my name.  Perhaps he had watched me for a while before approaching me.  If I had not killed him he could have helped me with all the shit I am struggling with now.  If only I could of cried.

I told you I wouldn’t get emotional so I’m stopping there.  Picture me for the next few weeks starving as a television full of static faintly illuminates my sightless expression.  Then picture me hugging close to my chest a half filled Smuckers jar.  What had once filled strawberry, now held black ash.  Then leave it at that.

I’m just a common whore.  With nothing special and nothing unique about me.  But I’m alive, damn it.  I’m alive.  Please let me stay alive.